Venture capital

As retailers scratch their heads to find ways to counter Amazon's ongoing disruption of their industry, investment is flowing to technology companies that meld shopping, payments and fulfillment.

A new blockchain network that promises to compete with Ethereum is taking the token sale trend to the next level.

The app allows users, many of them first-time investors, to get started for as little as $5.

The Spanish bank's VC arm added two companies focused on artificial intelligence to its portfolio this week. Both firms promise to help banks connect better with customers.

The company contends a lot of current payments technology is focused on horizontal companies that are designed to easily enable payments, and are operating agnostic to the type of business that requires a payments gateway,

PwC reports a modest improvement in its gender pay gap. A study finds a big gender pay gap in the U.K’s financial services industry. Plus, female founders speak out about sexual harassment and explain why they kept quiet before.

One of the best early bitcoin companies, Blockchain survived a period marked by scandals and shutdowns to become a market leader and attract new investment for expansion.

Centana Growth Partners has raised $250 million for investment in what it describes as financial services startups with innovations that can be turned into real products.

Dan Morehead’s Pantera Capital Management, which calls itself the first U.S. bitcoin investment firm, is buying other digital coins.

Long Game uses behavioral economics and the mass popularity of lottery games to redirect lottery spending toward savings.

Brendan Dickinson of Canaan Partners says PFM startups have deep relationships with customers, unlike online lenders, but the revenue model isn't as strong.

The funding comes as the financial services industry continues to search for safer ways for customers to share their account data with third-party apps.

Payments and financial services technology are still stuck in yesteryear, chained to paper and dangerously prone to fraud, according to Matt Streisfeld, a principal at Oak HC/FT.

Loyalty programs are getting more sophisticated, but they still typically boil down to a game of collecting and redeeming points.

"Virtually every venture capitalist I know is excited about insurance as the next big thing in fintech," says Sam Hodges, co-founder and U.S. managing director at Funding Circle.

Blockchain Capital wants to raise $10 million by issuing its own digital token, a method the firm says is the future for startups, VCs and everybody else.

Wearable payment devices are cutting edge, fast and diverse. But they are not a steady, predictable or popular consumer trend. Even so, investors see a rich opportunity to get involved in the market for wearables.

An improved state-level system could be a tremendous advantage. Working closely with a cooperative regulator, innovators large and small can rapidly test a concept within state lines.

With scammers steadily improving their techniques, CO-OP Financial Services is starting to offer artificial intelligence to police transactions initiated by online, mobile and other connected devices.

Swedish startup Truecaller has become the newest entrant in India’s busy digital payments space, via a tie-up with ICICI Bank Ltd. to offer a local mobile-payments service.